Week 8 NFL Recap and the Lady Blitz Mid-Season Awards

Well heck, outside of my fantasy team's insipid slump, this may just have been the best week of the whole NFL season for one Lady Blitz blogger!  The Saints finally had a convincing win against a great team, the rest of the NFC South shot itself in the foot in delightful fashion, and someone happened to get her question published on Bill Simmon's weekly NFL picks column on Grantland here (about 3/4 of the way down the page).  I'm still in loser zen until New Orleans proves it can win on the road, but I'll most certainly take it!  Here's your Week 8 NFL Recap and the ever-prestigious Lady Blitz Mid-Season Awards.

Week 8: The Good Stuff

Big Ben's Biggest Day - If I told you one quarterback would throw for 6 TDs and over 500 yards with an 80% completion rate and no interceptions?  Just how long would it take you to guess that person was Ben Roethlisberger, engineering the most majestic stop on the Todd Haley redemption tour to date?  For those of you who need another reason to geek out on stats, Roethlisberger's game against the Colts on Sunday yielded a 99.0 QBR, one of the highest ratings for that stat ever.  In a weird way, I think the Steelers benefited greatly by playing Indianapolis in this game - Andrew Luck will take a mile for every inch of comeback margin you give him in the fourth quarter, so Pittsburgh refused to take its foot off the gas.  That doesn't change the fact that Ben Roethlisberger is still a completely terrible person though, just sayin'.  So how about a picture of Antonio Brown being awesome instead?

Andy Dalton's Short-Term Memory - Having a much less glamorous game on Sunday, Andy Dalton was every Bengals fan's nightmare for a spell against the rival Ravens.  He coughed up a fumble and an interception on consecutive drives in the fourth quarter, allowing Baltimore to go ahead by four points.  It was ugly enough to send some Cincy fans for the exits lest they suffer another disappointing drive to end the game (and they should now be forced to donate their wild card playoff tickets to charity, by the way).  Without A.J. Green and still in the shadow of a miserable shutout in Indianapolis, Dalton could have easily let this one slip away for good.  Instead, he drove the Bengals 80 yards to go-ahead paydirt.  Per my buddy Hebert, his new nickname ought to be the Ginger Avenger.  I like it!

The Redskinks' Mysterious Defense - I don't know of anyone including myself who gave the Redskinks a chance to win on Monday night in Dallas.  There were a lot of pockets of good to point to in how they pulled off the upset of the week.  Alfred Morris finally got a good rhythm going on the ground, and Colt McCoy kept mistakes to a minimum on offense.  But give the game ball to defensive coordinator Jim Haslett.  He called a phenomenal game that kept Dallas off its mark throughout - the Redskinks lined up to blitz on virtually every play but they alternated between going for the quarterback and dropping back into coverage.  Even before he got injured, Tony Romo had a rough night - he was sacked five times and started forcing off-kilter throws after Washington's disguised looked proved to be too much.  And how about rookie CB Bashaud Breeland?  He kept Dez Bryant to just three catches and gave Washington a chance to hold onto a lead in the end. 

Nailed It!  My Best Week 8 Prediction - A slight edge was all the Cardinals needed to eke it out in an excellent head-to-head matchup between two 5 - 1 NFC teams.  Good for me for having a little faith in Carson Palmer in the Bruce Arians Era:

• I think this'll be down to the wire and depend greatly on how many mistakes these offenses make against two very opportunistic defenses.  So with Carson Palmer playing pretty well and Arizona having homefield advantage, I give the slight edge to the Cards.

Week 8: The Bad Stuff

The Falcons' Buttfumble, Metaphorically Speaking - The rest of the NFC South might just take a page from Michigan State and implore Atlanta to keep coach Mike Smith for another year.  It's pretty much impossible to fail the way the Falcons did on Sunday morning without actively trying to lose the game.  If you want the full play-by-play Bill Barnwell does an excellent job here, but in essence, the Falcons were up by two points at the two-minute warning after letting the Lions sneak back into what was once a 21 - 0 game.  Detroit was down to one timeout and Atlanta was at midfield with a 1st and 10.  Worst case scenario, the Falcons kneel out or run it up the gut for three plays and give the Lions less than 30 seconds to try to get into field goal range, right?  So wrong, so very wrong.  The Falcons opted to pass on third down (incomplete), stopping the clock and giving the ball back to Detroit with 90 seconds instead.  And then, when the Lions make an equally questionable decision to run the ball without timeouts when they're in field goal range with the suddenly shaky Matt Prater warming up, Atlanta calls a timeout. It's easy to say Mike Smith did some of his worst coaching to date and call it a day, but this just reeks on another level of a coach who doesn't believe his team can win even when the answer's right in front of him.

Blake Bortles' Jersey Confusion - Only in Jacksonville.  No rookie quarterback is lighting the world on fire the way they all did in 2012, but Blake Bortles is at that precarious point where he could Schaub his way into desperation passing into triple coverage for good.  Bortles has already thrown 12 interceptions to just 6 touchdowns on the year, and a staggering four of those interceptions were pick-sixes.  If Miami's defense needed a confidence boost on Sunday, they got it with the beleaguered rookie - his two pick-sixes made all the difference when Ryan Tannehill was on the ropes on offense.

Shanked It! My Worst Week 8 Prediction - Didn't anyone tell you gambling is wrong anyway?!  Plus, how about that Mark Ingram? Who Dat!

• Holy crap, gamblers out there - Take. The. Packers. If the Saints can wrangle this into a back-and-forth shootout, they might just have a chance in primetime at the Superdome. But there’s no way to make that porous defense look rosy these days, and New Orleans almost never does well when Pierre Thomas is out. Green Bay should continue to let the good times roll just fine in the Big Easy.

Week 8 Feature: The Lady Blitz Mid-Season Awards

And now it's time to polish off the fiber-optic hardware for these fancy mid-season awards I just made up!

Most Agonizing Collapses - Saw can't compete with the NFC South when it comes to torture porn in the form of last minute fails.  In ascending (or is it descending?) order, I give you 3) the Saints' loss on an awful Drew Brees pick against the Lions after losing a 2-score lead in the 4th quarter; 2) the Steelers' loss to the Buccaneers on a shanked punt and defensive whiff with less than a minute to go; and 3) the aforementioned Falcons' incomprehensible self-destruction to the Lions in London.  To quote Christopher Walken, Wowie Wow Wow.

First Half Popcorn Classic - This one goes out to the most thrilling NFL game to date this season.  We've had a hefty supply of Tecmo-numbers and overtime games that qualify, but the one that still stands out to me was that Super Bowl rematch between Denver and Seattle in Week 3.  It more than atoned for February's blowout with methodical coaching on both teams' part and Peyton Manning's masterful 80-yard touchdown drive with less than a minute to go to send the game to overtime.  Great stuff - let's do it again!

Sneakiest Playoff Contender - The Buffalo Bills.  That's right - the team I've only picked correctly twice this season sitting just outside the AFC seeding right now at 5 - 3.  Sammy Watkins is making a helluva case for rookie of the year, and he's also making quarterbacks not named E.J. Manuel look like Pro Bowlers.  Throw in a Top 3 rush defense inside a division that's nowhere near as competitive as the AFC North or West, and the Bills might just sneak into more than golf comps in January.  What a nice commemoration of the end of the Ralph Wilson era this would be.  Go Bills!

Best Zombie Team - So who's coming back from the dead after a sub-optimal first half performance?  The Panthers, Chargers and Eagles all catapulted from hapless losers to playoff contenders last year as someone expertly predicted.  I still have to see signs of life from the Saints on the road before I start counting chickens there, so I'm going with the Steelers who are red hot on offense in a crowded division.  They've been up and down throughout the season with an uncharacteristically generous defense, but they may have just turned a corner with a key win against Indianapolis.  Pittsburgh gets Baltimore next week and two shots at Cincy before the season ends.  Did I mention they also get half of the NFC South, the Jets and the Titans? With Ryan Shazier back and Roethlisberger playing his best ball, the Steelers might just turn up on point differential the second half of the season.

Best Disappointment Waiting to Happen - On the converse of the Zombie Team prize, who's just waiting to screw it up after dazzling us these first eight weeks?  After praising them profusely and then changing my mind like a good pundit, my crystal ball says the Detroit Lions.  They got two gift-wrapped wins on the failures of the Saints and Falcons in consecutive weeks - the only difference between Detroit being 6 - 2 and 4 - 4.  The offense hasn't looked good in weeks with Megatron sidelined and Reggie Bush/Joique Bell putting up puny numbers on the ground.  And the injuries just keep coming - the Lions are down to their fourth string tight end and will miss DE Nick Fairley for at least a month, which will surely impact the defensive success they've had thus far.  And that schedule coming up?  It includes the Cardinals, Patriots, Packers and a desperate Bears team twice.  The Red Wings might be good this year though.

Best Game Left on the Schedule - We've got a huge AFC battle this weekend when Brady and Manning have their annual reunion in Foxboro.  They're both playing at a divine level and the Pats' homefield advantage should help compensate for the injuries they've had on defense so that this one stays competitive.  And if I'm looking for Week 17 photo finishes, I like the 49ers hosting the Cardinals and the Steelers hosting the Bengals to decide who punches their ticket to the playoffs.